In a world with a great abundance of easily harvested cedar trees, every house could have an exterior surface of natural cedar siding. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Cedar trees are increasingly rare, and the wood from these trees is increasingly expensive. In particular it is difficult to obtain, even at prices of $1,600 per 1,000 board feet or more, clear (i.e. without visible knots) cedar siding as unitary pieces (i.e. that have not been assembled from shorter pieces finger jointed together) in uniform 16 foot lengths. Obtaining siding pieces in shorter lengths greatly increases the work of the carpenters constructing a house, because more pieces must be nailed onto the frame to complete the construction. If the pieces are nonuniform in length, a certain amount of planning is added to the carpenters"" work. The present invention has to do with a laminated wood product and method for producing the same, that permits a more efficient use of available cedar wood for providing siding material for houses.
Referring to FIGS. 1a-1d, long siding pieces that are formed by joining a first piece of cedar 10 and a second piece of cedar 12 together with finger-joints are too unsightly to be used to form the siding of a house unless they are covered with paint. Finger-joints are made by forming fingers 14 in both first piece 10 and second piece 12. Fingers 14 are separated in the thickness dimension, and extend from top to bottom in piece 10 and piece 12, which are fit together, by interleaving and adhering fingers 14, to form a finger-jointed board 16.
To produce siding pieces in the familiar beveled shape, piece 16 is cut diagonally from top to bottom, as shown in FIG. lc to form two identically shaped siding pieces 20. Unfortunately, this diagonal cut causes the crooked finger joint pattern to be displayed as a crooked seam 22 on a beveled or sloping display surface 24 of each siding piece, as shown in FIG. 1d. This ruins the potential of the siding pieces as a display of natural cedar. Therefore, when finger-jointed cedar siding pieces are used, they are typically covered with a coat of paint. As used in this application the term beveled may refer to a surface such as surface 24 which is sloped relative to the other. surfaces of piece 20 or may be used to describe a piece having such a sloped or beveled surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,041,231, issued to Fountain, describes a method for making laminated boards from rotten wood in which the rotten wood is laminated between two higher grade wood pieces and cut in two to create two laminated pieces having rotten wood adhered to high grade wood. The rotten wood is then treated, for example by sand blasting, so that it may be used as a sort of a rustic display. The Fountain patent thus is not directed toward beveled siding pieces, nor is it aimed at producing more pieces of high grade clear cedar siding from a fixed amount of clear cedar wood than is possible with conventional techniques.
One persistent problem faced by wood pieces that are designed for exterior use, where they are exposed to the elements, is the threat of delamination. There has been a very famous case in which a wood product siding material has decomposed in actual use and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in liability claims against the manufacturer. As a result wood industry participants are now very wary of the problem of delamination in any laminated product produced for exterior use. Of particular concern with respect to siding pieces is the bottom edge of the siding piece. Water can remain suspended from the bottom edge for a considerable period of time, working its way between the lamina and eventually potentially causing delamination.
What is still desired, then, is a way to provide a greater amount of siding having a pleasing appearance and the weather-resisting qualities of clear cedar, from a limited amount of cedar wood, than has previously been possible.
The present invention is a laminated siding piece comprising a beveled piece of support material and a substantially flat piece of display material laminated to said beveled piece of support material.
The foregoing and other objectives, features, and advantages of the invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.